Bank Job (8 page)

“One-fifty,” moaned Tom, disgusted. He snatched the bills and threw them to the floor. “All that stress and all we get is hundred and fifty friggin' bucks!”

We always expected thousands, many thousands. In gangster movies, bank robbers were always counting huge stacks of crisp hundred dollar bills. A hundred and fifty dollars didn't even come close. A hundred and fifty dollars, in the opinion of Tom Okada, was a joke.

I agreed with him, but I didn't say anything.

“I quit!” he said again. “The whole idea is friggin' stupid!”

“It's not stupid!” I said. “We're the Three Musketeers, remember?”

“The Three Musketeers is stupid and you're friggin' stupid too!” Tom left, slamming the door.

Later that night Tom and I were in the kitchen doing the dishes. He said angrily, “Billy talks us into it. We do whatever he says. It's like we're his puppets. He pulls the strings and we jump.”

“Not me,” I said. “Nobody pulls my strings. I go along with him because he's right. It's the only way we can ever get our hands on that kind of money.”

Tom snarled, “You look into his big blue eyes and listen to his voice and you're lost. It's like hypnosis. He's charismatic, that's what he is. Well I can resist him. It's not a problem for me. But you, you're…”

I didn't listen to the rest. I didn't need any more of Tom's criticism. Turning my back on him, I buried my hands in the suds and scrubbed the pots hard. I finished the dishes, and I was out of there.

Billy talked to Tom. Charmed him. We were walking to the bus stop on our way to school.

Billy looped one big arm round Tom's skinny shoulder like Tom was the best pal he ever had. “You know, Tom, a hundred and fifty bucks isn't all that bad. It's more lettuce than I ever saw before we started this caper.”

“Billy's right, Tom,” I said.

Billy said, “I know it's a small amount compared to the ten thousand we need, but we'll get there eventually. If we keep at it. If we don't give up.”

“Sure we will,” I said.

“But…,” said Tom.

Billy cut in. “It's like playing in the top of the seventh and you're a run down and the other side's got all the bases loaded. What do you do? You don't give up. You get in there and pitch, that's what you do. You get in there and you pitch until you drop. It's never over till it's over.”

Tom said, “Yeah?”

“You're a good buddy, Tom. The kind of buddy I'd want on my side if things ever went wrong. You're like a brother. All I want is for us all to stay together at the Hardys', you and Lisa and me and Nails. We're a family, right? The only family any of us has, right?”

Tom said, “I guess…”

“I believe it's worth fighting for. You can't let us down.”

“Well, uh…”

“Tom?”

Tom was back with us. The Three Musketeers once more.

There's charisma for you.

FOURTEEN

APRIL 16

Sunday afternoon brought a thin spring rain, the kind that came down like a mist and kept you indoors when you would rather be outside. Lisa had been busy all morning, painting with her watercolors and playing with Pumpkin, but now, just as I was about to join the boys for a meeting, she wanted me to play Scrabble with her.

“How come you're always having meetings with the guys in their room? What are the meetings about? Why don't you ever let me come?” She twisted a lock of her dark hair into a ringlet and blinked at me from behind her glasses.

“I'll try not to be too long. We'll play Scrabble later, okay?” I grabbed my math book.

They were waiting for me, Billy lounging on his bed and Tom working on a Sudoku puzzle on the floor. The window was open a few inches, and I could hear the whoosh and clatter of a SkyTrain on the tracks below. The noise never bothered the boys. They always slept through it. So they said.

After our last bank disaster, Billy had come up with a new idea.

That was what the meeting was all about.

“It's a new MO,” he said and then waited for us to digest this information.

Billy likes fancy crime words. MO means
modus operandi
, he'd explained to us, which is police language for method of operation. Billy said that criminals usually stuck with the same MO when they committed crimes, and only ever changed their MO when it stopped working for them.

“Why do we need a new MO?” asked Tom. “Because you were caught in the drug store?”

Billy shook his head, smiling at Tom. “As I've said before, being caught is not important when they don't find the loot on you. No loot, no case. No, what I'm getting at is the miserable take last time. A measly hundred and fifty bucks. Not good enough. It'll take us years to reach our goal at this rate.”

That's exactly what I'd been thinking. “So what's your plan, Billy?” I asked.

Billy relaxed into his usual pose, lounging back against his headboard, hands behind his head, eyes swiveling from Tom, up to the ceiling and down to me on the beanbag near the door.

Tom put down his Sudoku and cracked his knuckles.

Billy flinched.

“So what's the plan?” Tom asked.

“We hit harder. Instead of robbing from just one teller we rob from all of them.”

Tom and I were stunned into silence.

Tom was the first to speak. “And how do you propose to do that?”

“Simple. This is how I see it shaking down. Tom, you're still our handoff man. You wait in your usual spot down the street. But this time Nails and I go in together a few minutes before closing time. She's got a disguise too. As soon as we're in disguise we go into action. I yell for the tellers to put all their money on the counter. I pretend I've got a gun. Nell goes along the counter with her shopping bag and scoops up all the loot. Then we both run for it. The cash and disguises go into Tom's backpack. We all separate. SkyTrain escape as usual.”

Silence. My heart went numb. I would have to go right in there, into the bank, and scoop up the money.

“Won't work,” Tom said after a while.

Billy's eyebrows shot up one sixty-fourth of a centimeter. “Why not?”

“I dunno. It just seems crazy. Way riskier too, with more people in the bank knowing there's a robbery happening. Before, only the one teller knew it was a robbery. With this new idea there's way more chance of being caught. And I don't like the idea of a gun.”

Billy blinked. “But there won't
be
a gun.”

Crack-crack. “I know, but I don't even like the idea of a pretend gun.”

Billy looked over at me. “What do you think, Nails?”

It was hard to think with a numb heart. “It could work, I guess,” I said after a few seconds.

Billy smiled.

I was astonished. Those words came out of my mouth? What was happening to me? Was I catching Billy's buccaneer fever? Was I becoming addicted to excitement? Was it because I would do anything for us to stay together? Or was I just trying to please Billy?

I thought I knew the answer. I said quickly, “But I agree with Tom.”

Billy's smile disappeared. “You do?”

“Tom's right. It's too risky. We could get caught. And I don't like the idea of a gun either, even if it's not real. What if someone in the bank has a gun and they think we have guns? Wouldn't they shoot us? If we're disguised, they won't know we're just kids. They would just shoot us, thinking I'm a disguised dwarf. Besides, I couldn't do a thing like that, scooping up the money. I'd have a heart attack.”

Billy shrugged, disappointed. “Okay, forget about it.”

I hated letting him down.

Tom said, “I've got a suggestion for improving our getaway. It's the handoffs. I think I should be waiting round a corner instead of on the same street as the bank.”

Billy mumbled, “Oh yeah?”

Tom said to Billy, “Right now, if someone sees you put the money and disguise in Nails' shopping bag, they will watch where she goes and then see me. The whole idea of having a second handoff is so that won't happen.”

“So what do you suggest?” Billy asked.

“That I be hidden from sight around the corner from the bank. Nails leaves the bank, walks to the end of the block, turns the corner, makes the handoff. Anyone watching from the bank won't see anything.”

“Good idea, Tom,” said Billy. “Nails?”

I thought for a second or two. “I like it, but it still doesn't solve the problem of taking big risks for small amounts of money.”

“I say we carry on,” said Billy. “Small amounts will add up to big amounts. We've just gotta keep going.”

“We've made almost three thousand so far,” said Tom. “That's an average of almost a thousand dollars on each holdup.”

I shook my head. “You're wrong, Tom. If you count the holdup where the teller screamed and we got a big fat zero, the average is only about—what?”

“Okay, you're right, Nails. That would make it seven hundred for each holdup.” Tom nodded. “I forgot we did four.”

“All the more reason to try my new MO,” argued Billy. “Our average would skyrocket if we robbed two or three tellers at the same time.”

“Count me out,” said Tom.

“Me too,” I said. “Too risky. Holdups number one and three were good, over twenty-five hundred total.” I had the numbers memorized. “I say let's continue as we are. No changes. No new MO. Just Tom's idea, the change in the handoff.”

“Agreed,” said Tom.

Billy shrugged. “Okay.”

FIFTEEN

APRIL 17

We chose our next bank by studying the phone book and a street map.

It would be a small Bank of Hong Kong in Vancouver's Eastside . Billy planned the holdup for Thursday the twentieth. He thought that ten minutes before three o'clock would be a good time. We skipped out of school an hour early on Monday and took the SkyTrain to check everything out. We checked the bank, front and back. We checked the layout inside. We decided where the handoffs would be made— Tom around the corner this time, away from the bank sightlines and me right outside the bank entrance, as usual.

It was a nice little bank.

The SkyTrain station was only two blocks away.

“It's going to be a real pleasure knocking this one over,” said Billy.

He was getting more and more professional.

And charismatic.

Billy and I headed into the bank about ten minutes before closing time and lingered at a desk pretending to be busy. The Bank seemed larger than it was because it was all glass and light. Even on a dull, rainy day like this one, the interior was bright and spacious.

Billy wore his usual disguise.

It was a cold day, but I was sweating.

There were only two customers with tellers and an old guy looking through brochures near the manager's office. The manager's office door was closed, which was the way we liked it. We didn't want a manager peeping out to see what was going on.

Billy walked up to the teller—she looked like a high school kid, not much older than me, small, lots of makeup, blond curls. I left the bank and stood outside.

I waited for a while and then I knew something had gone wrong. Billy should have been out at least a minute ago. I pushed open the door and looked inside. Billy was wrestling with the man who had been reading brochures. He didn't look so old now. He clamped onto Billy's arm like a vulture.

Just as some of the other bank workers started running over to help the man, Billy shook himself free, and erupted through the door. We ran together down the street. I handed him my shopping bag. Billy stuffed his disguise and the loot in the bag and shoved it back at me. Sweating and breathing heavily, he crossed the street and disappeared down a narrow lane.

Wondering if anyone had seen me, I continued to the end of the block, whispering to myself, “Stay calm. Stay calm.” I turned the corner, and made my handoff to Tom. Without a word, Tom crammed my bag into his backpack, casually crossed the street, and followed Billy to the station. I walked back to the corner and looked toward the bank. Everything, except my heart, was quiet. Then I heard a police siren, and I was out of there.

I collapsed onto the beanbag. “That was close, Billy.”

Tom threw himself onto his bed. “Too friggin' close, if you ask me. Who was the guy who jumped you—a security guard?”

Billy sighed and lowered himself slowly onto his bed and assumed his usual position. “No. Don't think so. He was just a madman who happened to be there. Maybe he saw the teller crying, put two and two together and jumped me.”

“The teller was crying?” Tom's eyes widened in disbelief.

Billy was subdued. There was none of his usual devil-may-care attitude.

He said, “I think that's what she was doing. I saw tears. But she didn't make any noise. As a matter of fact, she was real quiet.”

Tom and I digested this disturbing information in silence.

“Poor kid,” I said.

Tom said, “I don't like this. I never did. It's a dirty business. We're messing with people's lives.”

I didn't say anything, but I thought Tom was right. It was a dirty business. It was cruel to cause someone pain.

Billy said, “That bank had drop boxes. I saw them.”

This was new to me. “What's a drop box?”

Billy leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling. “Each teller has a drop box. When the drawer starts filling up with bills they're supposed to drop them through a slot in their desk into a security box—a kind of miniature vault—under the counter. They don't have a key to get into it.”

“Oh yeah,” said Tom. “So what's that got to do with the girl crying?”

Billy said gloomily. “Take a look in your backpack and maybe you'll figure it out.”

We had completely forgotten about the money.